Holtz, then the coach at Notre Dame, had an opening for a receivers coach after the 1995 season in which the Fighting Irish went 9-3, losing to Florida State in the Orange Bowl. He was at a coaches convention when his son, Skip — then the coach at Connecticut — suggested he reach out to Meyer, who had replaced Skip as receivers coach at Colorado State in 1990.

Nope, Lou Holtz said: “I’ve got my mind set. But let’s grab lunch before I head back home.” So Holtz and his son met for lunch, along with a surprise guest: Meyer.

“So I sat with Urban, and we had lunch, and he’s such an engaging individual,” Holtz said. “I loved his philosophies. He was from Ohio, which would help in recruiting. His background, his demeanor. And I hired him and never regretted it.

“He was never once overwhelmed. He never gave me the impression he was overwhelmed by being at Notre Dame and all the pressure that goes with it. He was great with players, very meticulous, attention to detail, did his job, didn’t worry about politics.”

Holtz saw in Meyer then many of the same qualities that today make him one of the most successful coaches of this generation.

“It’s like when people say: ‘Show me a play or two that you knew made Tim Brown great or made Raghib Ismail great or Jerome Bettis,’” Holtz said. “The great ones, you walk off the field every day and you say: ‘You see what he did today? I can’t believe he did that.’ Every day, there’s something special.

“And it’s the same thing with Urban. Every day he walked off, the way he handled himself. He’s always on top of problems.”

Meyer, who won national championships at Florida in 2006 and ’08 and went 12-0 in his first year at Ohio State, enters this season with the Buckeyes ranked No. 2 in both the preseason USA Today and AP polls. OSU is viewed as one of the few teams capable of ending the Southeastern Conference’s reign of dominance.

But to win his third national title, Meyer might need to lead Ohio State past Nick Saban and No. 1 Alabama, the two-time defending national champion. Like Meyer, Saban has a distinct claim as the finest coach of this era.

The two have won five of the past seven and six of the past 10 national championships: Meyer in 2006 and ’08 and Saban in 2003 (at LSU), ’09, ’11 and ’12. No other coach in the Bowl Championship Series era — since 1998 — has more than one BCS national title. Saban and Meyer have combined for 12 seasons with 10 or more wins during the past decade.

So the two stand alone, separated from their coaching peers not only by their rampant success but also their unmatched competitive drive. This push for excellence — a non-stop lack of satisfaction — was evident when Saban was playing defensive back at Kent State, former Kent State and Washington coach Don James said.

“Some guys, they want to learn their position and forget about the rest,” he said. “But you could tell he was smart and he was interested in knowing the whole concept of defense.

“He was a competitor. I remember he came one day into my office and said: ‘Coach, I know you want us all to go to class, you want us to be eligible, you want us to do well. I just want you to not worry about me, because football’s too important to me. I’m going to be eligible.’ That’s just the way he was.”

Nothing has changed, James said, not since James persuaded Saban — a “tough, tough kid” — to assume a graduate assistant position at Kent State after he graduated in 1974. This was evident during the 2013 BCS title game, when Saban kept his competitive fire after the Crimson Tide took a huge second-half lead.

“Notre Dame completed a long pass. He let them have it,” James said. “I know exactly what he was going to do. He was going to get that player, and he was going to get the defensive backfield coach, the coordinator. And that’s just the way he is. He competes every play, every day. And that’s what I like about him.”

Former Michigan State coach George Perles, who worked with Saban from 1983-87, recalls Saban as “one of the guys that was the first guy in the office, last guy to leave.” This trait, the desire to outwork his peers, has continued during the course of Saban’s career, Perles said.

“This guy comes early and stays late and expects nothing less from everybody else who works with him,” he said. “He works hard, and he demands that his other coaches work just as hard. There’s no monkeying around that.”

In short, Saban and Meyer create environments in which perfection is the expectation. Saban inherited Perles’ program in 1995 and quickly lifted the Spartans into the Rose Bowl hunt. He led LSU to a national title in four years and molded Alabama into one of the great dynasties in college football history. Meyer has compiled a 34-4 mark during his second seasons at Bowling Green, Utah and Florida, leading the Gators to the national championship.

But focus, hard work and a cutthroat desire for perfection aren’t enough. Alone, these qualities are shared by countless other coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Saban and Meyer manage to extend this mind-set to the “second, third, fourth degree,” said Truman Alexander, author of Crystal Magnates: Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and the Principles of Dominance.

“They take them a lot farther than you could imagine them being taken,” Alexander said. “It ends up being a different thing that they’re doing. It’s the same idea, but the application makes it a different animal.

“These guys seem to operate in a way that’s independent of the agony that’s normally felt through losses and the ecstasy that’s normally felt through wins. In other words, they seem to just plow through their work and plow through the process of perfecting themselves, perfecting their programs, independent of the outcomes along the way. That inability to behave in a complacent manner is definitely one of their distinguishing principles.”

Asset appreciation

In many ways, Saban’s and Meyer’s approaches paint them as dictators, my-way-or-the-highway controllers who bulldoze through any hurdle, whether real or imagined, on the field or off.

They’re tough, Holtz said, but so are all great coaches — and Meyer’s and Saban’s track record of success suggests this way is working.

“I don’t care how you twist or turn it,” Holtz said of Meyer. “He’s tough, he’s demanding, as all coaches are who are successful. Assistant coaches do not like him and players do not like him — until they get away from him, then they realize what he did for them. You always hear things about Nick Saban. You’ll hear things about Urban Meyer. But I know them both very well. They’re both outstanding people who are committed and dedicated and going to get things done.”

In a way, Saban and Meyer are compared not only in the present, with their teams sitting 1-2 atop the polls, but also in history: Saban and Meyer often are mentioned in the same breath at this generation’s coaching gold standard.

Earle Bruce, who apprenticed Saban (1980-81) and Meyer (1986-87) at Ohio State, said their unmatched assets make them almost wholly unique. They share their qualities only with each other.

They’re simply outstanding football coaches, Bruce said.

“Outstanding organizers,” Bruce said. “Very good thinkers. Great recruiters. Love to coach the game of football. Outstanding with young people. There’s no doubt about that.”